dull scratched headlights

[knoxie]

my headlights are dull scratched and just generally sh!te, has anyone else had this?

is it a case of new headlights or could they be polished out?

sorry if this has been covered before, had a search but on the iphone and its pants haha

thanks in advance
knoxie

 

[<tuffty/>]

http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/a3-s3-...9-my-minor-modding-thread-15.html#post1057193

Here you go...

<tuffty/>

 

[Hammy999]

Hi is easy to polish out by hand using cutting compound. If you have a look on YouTube there are a few vids showing how
I did mine made a big difference just needed a bit of elbow grease !

 

[<tuffty/>]

I have read several tutorials and write ups on refurbishing plastic headlights most of which involve using wet and dry sandpaper first followed by a machine polish... sounded easy enough but sanding the headlight with wet and dry scares the life out of me but I decided to give it a go...

Here's the kit I used...

As you can see from this pic the headlight is fairly rough...

...still a bit worried about sanding the whole light so tried it on a small patch in the corner... used 2000 w&d with water of course then went over twice with Menz final finish which resulted in...

...happy with that I proceeded to mask up around the light and sanded the whole light face with 2000 w&d...

...ended up looking like this...

...dried off the water and finished up doing 3 passes with a soft pad an Menz final finish..

...the result of the first pass...

...and the final result...

...compared to the passenger side that I haven't done yet...

...and finally a comparison with the headlights on...

Before....

After...

Moved over to the passenger side headlight...

The result of 3 more passes over with Menz final finish and a spot pad on a Kestral DA this time...

Looking at this one compared to the passenger side one I decided I couldn't wait and cracked on with sorting that one out too... feeling more confident of my abilities now I went straight in with 1000 grit wet and dry which took a bit of work to get an even finish then worked the light over with 2000 grit wet and dry as before....

This is the point where you would justifiably feel sick as a pig looking at the very opaque headlight.... Just to reassure you I taped up half the light and did a single pass with the DA...

...as you can see its pretty easy to get the finish back but use a hardish pad as my medium pad had got saturated and ended up using a soft pad which took god knows how many passes until I was happy...

Reminder of the light before..

..and after...

Next thing to do is to get some the Lamin-x film to protect the headlights now the UV layer has been removed and to help protect against stone chips...

A worth while job to do considering these headlamps are something close to �500 each from a dealer to replace..

<tuffty/>

 

[cagiti]

Hi there, awesome results!! What circular polisher do you have? Do you think a dual action polisher would suffice here?

 

[A3 T]

What circular polisher do you have?

I was going to ask the same question.....lol


There's also this thread: http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/a3-s3-...urbed-prefacelift-headlights.html#post1234645

 

[knoxie]

thanks guys, i was thinking about w&d'ing it but as you said scared me a bit haha thanks very much tuffty you really are top

 

[<tuffty/>]

Hi there, awesome results!! What circular polisher do you have? Do you think a dual action polisher would suffice here?

Dual action... normal polisher would make things too hot and melt the plastic... the one in the picture is a Silverline DA sander which goes low enough speed for this or I have access to a Kestral DA6

<tuffty/>

 

[mattyboy199]

Turtle Wax do a headlight restoration kit. I actually bought it as i had a headlight replaced by my insurance, the other headlight looked pretty weathered & this did tidy the lense up. The problem i have is the internals fade & a new HID headlight is £500, my plan is to purchase a halogen casing & swap everything over.

 

[colicabcadam]

will defo use this thread, my ktm headlight will love this, well done tuffy

 

[sportstractor]

yeah i did this with my lights last year, it is frightening stuff when you start on the heavier gauge paper. But they came up much better after sanding

 

[knoxie]

where can you get this 'lamin-x' from? can you get pre cut to the size we need? or is it a case of cutting yourself?

 

[<tuffty/>]

Lamin X

<tuffty/>